In this column I, Simon (S'mon
on ENWorld), "most experienced Immortals GM on the Planet" (ha
ha) will offer some ancedotes from my time GMing for Craig's deity PC
Thrin in our long running AD&D campaign, and hopefully offer some
thoughts on what worked for me and could be useful in your own campaigns.

Part 1: The Human
Dimension

On an interplanar quest to
retrieve the Sword of Kas before the bad guys can get it, PC demigod Thrin
plane shifts to a new plane - and is promptly struck down… by a
station wagon driven by tough-guy cop Detective Sledge Hammer.

I think that in all my years
of running deity games with my players Bob (Mirv Sheelon), Craig (Thrin),
Fergus (Mortis Deathlord, ne Storrax Brightside) and others, that's the
moment I remember most fondly. It was hard to say who was most annoyed
- Thrin, who'd been flung thirty feet through the air and lost scads of
hit points; Sledge - who'd spilt his cup of coffee; or Sledge's comely
sidekick Dorie Dureaux, whose blouse had sadly received some of that coffee.
It was pure GM fiat of course - the scenario was set in New York in the
cyberpunkish year 2020 AD, having Thrin appear in the middle of a busy
highway in front of a speeding automobile driven by a character ripped
screaming from an '80s spoof cop show was the perfect 'bang' to get things
moving and immediately involve the deity PC with highly characterful NPCs
who could help or hinder his quest for the Sword of Kas. It turned out
to be Dorie who did most of the helping - and if you've seen "Sledge
Hammer" you'll know why. At the time, Thrin was maybe 80th level
with perhaps 350 hp. Sledge & Dorie were I think 4th level, with hit
points in the low double figures. Against the cybernetically enhanced
street gangs and Arasaka Corporation security forces of 21st century New
York two unenhanced cops with handguns and oddly retro fashion sense were
almost comically ineffective. Yet throughout the adventure, these NPCs
were major forces in the game, people with whom Thrin dealt as equals
- he needed them, and they could help him, or not. Their stats really
didn't matter.

To me, this
is the key to successful Immortals gaming - every interaction should be
meaningful,
whether it's with a 1st-level Commoner or Odin himself. It goes against
a lot of 3e's core assumptions, but I probably put more time and effort
into Thrin's interactions with mortals umpteen Challenge Ratings below
him than I did to his relation to his divine superiors in Asgard, Tyr
and Odin. And likewise, Thrin's battles with mortals like the shotgun-toting
Russian Solo Oleg Gadinsky or Orlok the Vorpal Battleaxe-wielding Scarlet
Brotherhood assassin (Thrin had a wardpact against swords) were at least
as exciting - and scary - as his encounters with the Devil-God Druaga
or Wotan the Hanged God.

This kind of idea - that
the hero will face challenges on all kinds of levels, emotional as well
as physical - can be seen in many super-hero comics, where the protagonist
commonly wrestles with a 'cover identity' and the opportunities and challenges
of human interaction it provides - Superman may have near-infinite power,
but that doesn't necessarily mean he can sort out his love life satisfactorily.

D&D (and perhaps the
3e rules in particular), by contrast, often seem to carry the assumption
that the only meaningful dealings are those with characters and situations
of comparable power - in 3e, that means roughly a -7-+7 level spread -
and while 15 levels is a lot in the standard game, deity-level gaming
inevitably concerns vast power levels and hence potentially vast disparities
in power. I would advocate taking a hint from the comics writers, and
looking at ways in which you can personalise the PCs by giving them not
just mortal NPCs to interact with, but reasons why they _need_ to do so.
In the Thrin example above, he was a fish out of water who badly needed
a guide to the strange new world he found himself in.

Plane-hopping adventures
give a lot of opportunity for such characters - on another occasion Thrin
entered a new world, Werskara, through a 'Stargate' (a standing stone
gateway - this was well before that movie & TV show!) and found himself
accosted by a trio of mortal heroes who had quested to that same spot
in search of the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy - the Star Warrior
who would help save their world. Thrin eventually helped Reesha, a barbarian
warrior-princess who was the trio's last survivor, save her world from
the savage Wolfen, recovering a bunch of lost artifacts (the Crown, Armour
& Shield of Varran) from sundry locations throughout Werskara (the
tower of the Ice Sorceress, the Hag of the Twisted Tower on the Falling
Marshes at the edge of the world, the volcanic dungeons of Sunderhold)
and using them to beat the Wolfen in a titanic battle. Thrin and Reesha
got along rather well - so well that in the aftermath of their victory
they fell in love, eventually got married, settled down in Asgard and
had children together. Okay, Reesha was a high- level Barbarian, and she
now had enough artifacts to sink a battleship, but still, she was definitely
a mortal.